


Fancy a Lift?

by unbridledrestraint



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Complete, Confessions, Eventual Sherlock Holmes/John Watson, First time for everything, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Repression, Self-Experimentation, dodgy neuroscience, independent contractor, persistent sherlock, quick study, sharing economy, the wrong way about it, transport-based AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-27
Updated: 2016-07-27
Packaged: 2018-07-27 01:58:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 3,688
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7599004
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/unbridledrestraint/pseuds/unbridledrestraint
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John Watson takes up driving as a pastime, and meets his One True Passenger, Sherlock Holmes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Smoke Gets In Your Eyes

**Author's Note:**

  * For [this-caring-lark (firstimecaller)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/firstimecaller/gifts).



> First-time fan fiction writer. Go easy on me - or actually, don't! Comments and suggestions are highly appreciated.
> 
> Inspired by my experiences in "ridesharing" and the conversations that have ensued as a result. Because this is entirely fiction, and not meant to resemble real situations, I claim no rights or privileged knowledge of Uber, its trademarks, and its operating procedures. I am simply using it as a vehicle (see what I did there?) to characterise John Watson as a sharing economy driver.

John Watson alighted on the kerb, indulging a soundless sigh. He struck a match on improvised automotive flint -- a bit of primer daubed over some embedded gravel he'd never managed to dislodge, nor properly paint over, for the past four years. Lit a cigarette. Inhaled. Exhaled again, this time audibly, fingertips flicking ashes from the bristly edges of a moustache in three days' want of a trim. His eyes flitted up to a bank clock through the smoke as it dissipated, and blinked. The bank clock blinked back 11:38 PM. He donned his cap, closed his eyes, inhaled.

In his mind's eye, he methodically retrieved his atlas, but an atlas more dynamic and intricately shaded with information than ever could be printed on a page. Made multilayered sketches of his prospective route options til dawn. Peered around a few unfamiliar corners, nowadays more out of habit than defiant obstinance, but thankfully those bogies had been relatively quiet for at least a couple of years.

After returning from Afghanistan, honourably discharged but psychologically defeated, he'd dutifully ticked off boxes with the therapist assigned to transition him to civilian life. Writing a blog about stifling boredom on a trifling pension? Dull, although the rhymey-timey title did elicit a few laughs. Fill-in hours at the surgery? Mind-numbing, and during the drowsy overnights where he sometimes nodded off, his mind filled that void with shouts and shrapnel. "My traumatised brain needs rewiring," he'd mused, in what would be his last blog post.

John didn't maintain many friendships, but he was fortunate to have a handful of social stalwarts that persisted in his life, pulling solid connections for him out from amidst their networks. Thanks to one of them, a charcoal grey five-door hatchback had materialised, and between interviews for positions at which he was technically overcapable but mentally stymied, he earned a modest amount driving for Uber. One Friday evening, after stoically depositing his last fare -- yet another inebriated beyond words, overtly flirtatious but disastrously inappropriate, slightly rumpled but still pub-worthy twenty-something woman -- into a posh neighbourhood he was certain hadn't existed a decade ago, then promptly submerging his tense face into another halo of cigarette smoke, he had The Idea.


	2. Almost Certainly

Though John was Almost Certain he was ill-suited to practice civilian medicine, he still had a vested interest in clinical research: not only had he spent the formative years of his life in medical training, he Almost Certainly had post-traumatic stress disorder. Rattling around his brain as consistently as the bullets and shouty soldiers were the words "hippocampal shrinkage." But also rattling around his brain were the words "The Knowledge," better known alias for the trials of neophyte cabbies learning London's labyrinthine mess of roadways, in preparation for the ensuing barrage of licensure examinations.

Dr. Watson was well aware that the hippocampus -- a portion of the brain grimly named for and shaped like a seahorse -- was both integral to memory formation and implicated in post-traumatic stress disorder, hence the somewhat embarrassing concern that his might be shrinking. In his blog- and clinic-inspired tedium, he consumed a fair number of articles about the hippocampi of London's taxi drivers: apparently, acquiring The Knowledge was marked by increased volume of grey matter in part of the hippocampus, presumably due to the spatial and contextual complexity of navigating central London. Unfortunately, Dr. Watson was no neurosurgeon, and an even cruder mechanic -- he couldn't tell you whether bolstering one hippocampal function could rewire the entire damned thing. However, he did know that he was unproductive, suffering from nightmares, and truly, truly bored.

"Well," John muttered, "this will Almost Certainly fail, but my free time is decidedly not in short supply."

That, and computer chess, a memory-hacking diversion recommended to him by numerous acquaintances, wasn't helping. Driving, which he found meditative in its own right, at least forced him to interact with his fellow human beings. And that is how John Watson, former British Army doctor and Captain in the Fifth Northumberland Fusiliers, quit playing doctor and decided to become a cabbie.


	3. Bloody Sharing Economy

Oh, not a proper cabbie, with its rules and regulations and licences and metres too reminiscent of the military rigidness John could none too soon forget. And never mind that, according to Uber, he was not even under anyone's employ. "Bloody sharing economy," muttered John into his cold takeaway coffee, on an evening his mobile app declared that he would not receive any more driver offers if he did not haul his indigent arse over to Zone 6.

But his self-study programme paid off. As he memorised roundabouts and alleyways, optimised routes and movement patterns, the pulse returned to London's pallid cheeks, borough by borough, with names and habits of repeat fares, favoured watering holes, and 24-hour cafes that served adequate sandwiches adding hues to his mental atlas like a colouring book. Every night he returned to his flatshare, another grace courtesy of the Social Stalwarts, where he suppressed the apprehension of falling asleep and staring into the lifeless eyes of another comrade by forcing richer details into that atlas until he lost consciousness. But he didn't want to forget them, either. For every new page in his atlas (because what is a mental model without a proper physical analogy?), he commemorated a fallen member of his regiment by inking their name into the astral paper, hoping the association would cement this new context somewhere in his blasted seahorse brainpart. Somehow, the nightmares subsided. And, every now and then, when John performed his shuteyed magic before an evening's drive, he encountered a resurrected soldier around a heretofore undiscovered corner, where they shared a furtive smile.

Being a glorified cabbie had its benefits. He set his own schedule (generally, under the comforting cover of darkness), and often, the vagaries of Uber's algorithmic driver assignments brought him characters and narratives he couldn't have conjured even in his cleverest blogger moments. He lost count of the women and men alike who had climbed into the hatchback, redolent of stale pints or the acidic tang of perspiration-diluted spirits, intrepidly recounting their ridiculous evenings and occasionally propositioning him all the while. Though John considered himself a reasonably attractive, if tragically unstylish man, his reaction varied from bemused to outright disturbed. He chalked it up to alcohol-fueled candor.

Rarer were the less garrulous but equally fascinating passengers whose silence told volumes. There was the fare whose profile simply identified her as "Woman," who, despite no evidence as such, John felt absolutely certain was naked as the day she was born underneath her impeccably tailored trenchcoat. Or the bespoke-suited man who inexplicably requested rides to nowhere on a monthly basis while acting as if he were doing his driver a favour, ritualistically fussing with his oversized umbrella, wearing a knowing smirk which belied his male pattern baldness. "A goddamned spy losing the hounds on his tail?" posited John.

Even rarer still, the night a preternatural creature winged its way into his vehicle.

"Evening,... Sherlock," John greeted, glancing quickly at the name displayed by his mobile.


	4. Bloody Sharing Economy, Part 2

The passenger, one Sherlock Holmes, grunted in affirmation, his capelike overcoat fluttering to rest around his gangling frame, gaze never leaving his own mobile. John, who had already noted the destination, shut his eyes, briefly, the process almost unnecessary due to intuition. Swung the car back in the direction from which he approached.

"You're not following the sat nav," Sherlock said suddenly, the baritone of his speaking voice startlingly resonant for a man of his proportions. Braking, John peered into the rearview mirror.

From the icy cast of the mobile screen, his fare's blue eyes flickered upward, where they caught the amber haze of the streetlamp and appeared ghastly green. Like dichroic aquamarine, John noted to himself. He immediately flushed at the mineralogical reference to his unpopular childhood hobby.

"Oh," John said, hesitantly. "Well, yes, I know this area, well, actually quite well, well enough to have a reasonably good mental map, and while it seems circuitous, it will definitely be quicker -- " 

"Hrmmp," came the reply. "A rudimentary mind palace technique preferred by career taxi drivers. Though, apparently, and unexpectedly, also by select occasional drivers, I presume." John, lacking a response, nodded mutely.

They rode on in silence. After fifteen minutes, they approached a caravan of scowling constables, cordoning off a grisly scene where a girl no older than twelve lay in a sticky pool of blackened maroon, around whom the unperturbed lights of various patrol cars screamed into the heavens. John gaped, then tentatively asked, "This the destination?"

"Yes."

"You don't have the look of a police inspector. Are you... a private investigator of sorts?"

"Consulting detective. World's only," was the peremptory response. A pause, and Sherlock's impenetrable visage shifted almost imperceptibly. "You ought to stop smoking, you know. It's a crutch from which your recovering mind derives no benefit. Besides, the singed moustache does your otherwise inoffensive face no favours," he rapidly intoned, before exiting the vehicle to his crime scene.

John stared after him in disbelief. "Bloody sharing economy, indeed."


	5. Shenanigans Are Afoot

The next week proceeded rather normally for John. No interviews, as he'd gratefully disposed of the idea of conventional employment. Just enough light internet research to keep his gears lubricated, some leisure reading -- his flatmate had a sizeable library of inane, if entertaining, contemporary fiction -- far too many cigarettes, and nonstop pub runs for London's millennial-cum-yuppies.

Then came Tuesday. "Evening --," John began.

"Yes, yes, Sherlock Holmes. Dispense with the pleasantries, as we've been acquainted. Kindly perform your route calculations as we depart; shenanigans are afoot and it's a long night ahead," Sherlock percussed.

Christ, John thought, does the prat always go on like this? He hadn't recognised the origin address, and it was only his luck, for this to be a repeat fare. John admitted it could either be delightful or disastrous, and frankly, he was game for either. He nodded, put the car into gear, and prepared for another wordless journey, but the silence only lasted five minutes: apparently Sherlock was feeling chatty.

"Your navigation rivals the best of the black cabs, though given my experience with that particular pool of humanity, it's not a high bar to surpass. Nonetheless, you've not only acquired but mastered that set of skills in half the amount of time customarily required, as one of your preferred routes depends on a section of motorway that has only existed for six months. Your demeanour suggests post-secondary education, and the precision and consistency with which you you steer, brake, and use your indicators suggests the rigour and discipline demanded by years of technical training, likely in a military setting. Your occasional need for spectacles and your smoking habit rules out the Royal Air Force, Marines, and Navy. So, how does a discharged Army doctor turn up as an Uber driver?"

John hadn't a clue how someone could emit so many fully formed sentences in such a short span of time, much less with such incisive observations. His jaw would have dropped, had it not felt wired in place.

"Well," John stammered, gathering his wits. "Well, this HONOURABLY discharged doctor suffered from the consequences of war, and driving seemed as good a source of income to supplement my meagre pension as any other."

"Come off it," Sherlock pressed. "You're highly educated and clearly capable; you've other motivations for this common a line of work."

"My atlas," John explained. Sherlock's eyebrows were piqued along with his interest.

"My atlas," John repeated. "What you would refer to as a, erm, mind palace." Sherlock hummed in approval. "I theorised that certain portions of my brain were adversely affected by my time in Afghanistan. PTSD, as it turns out, diminishes the part of the brain involved in memory, and I thought that if I devised navigational exercises and a corresponding pictorial representations, I could rehabilitate it. Like some sort of convoluted Sudoku."

"Sudoku?" queried Sherlock. "Never mind. I have read the studies you reference and I believe your connection is tenuous. Post-traumatic stress syndromes are correlated with decreased volume of the hippocampus at large; the navigational training of London taxi drivers is correlated with increased volume in the posterior hippocampus. However, researchers can barely agree on whether the posterior and anterior hippocampi are truly separate structures, much less if activity in one affects the other, or how its various functions are interrelated --"

"I like driving," John interjected. "And my symptoms -- nightmares, mainly, at this point -- have abated. It also affords me the flexibility to come and go as I please, and the opportunity to meet curious characters, present company included."

"'Curious,' you say."

"Well, occasionally, yes. Most of the time it's just a routine of carting around the completely sloshed while they regale me of their adventures."

Sherlock stifled a yawn.

"And then there's the ones who are either so pissed or so entitled that they think they've summoned their plaything. Worst especially, certain types of men being inappropriately persistent until I'm forced to say, 'Look mate, I'm not your target audience.' "

Sherlock's voice was abrupt. "You mention the admirations of men as if you find them distasteful."

"No offence intended, though I'd like to know what it is about me that spurs, well, that sort of attention. But blokes not being my cup of tea --"

"Don't be daft," dismissed Sherlock.

John was taken aback. "Is this ride going to end in a punch-up?"

"No," Sherlock replied, sharply. "I simply prefer that you be conscious of your preconceived notions of human relations when discussing them. I --"

He was interrupted by a bullet ricocheting off the left fender. The sound flipped a switch in John's brain, and his version of enhanced autopilot kicked in.

"DOWN!" John commanded, sharply. Sherlock complied. John scanned the area behind them and identified the culprit in a distant corner. Atlas pages sprang into his mind's eye, as he estimated bullet trajectories, recalculated primary and alternate escape routes, and drove like his life and that of his precious cargo depended on it.

Sherlock's head emerged and emitted no sound, the whiteness of his knuckles around the front headrest indicating his concern at their predicament. His focus followed John's every acceleration and abrupt change of course, eyes narrowed in implicit concurrence.

John was barely aware as the squeal of tyres faded into the distance. Somehow, he had managed to bring them to a halt one courtyard away from the intended destination.

"Honestly, exhilarating." John's heartbeat was currently outpacing even the most prolific of punk drummers.

Sherlock looked preoccupied. "I think I can walk from here. Ta," he uttered, disappearing into the night, disengaging their adrenaline-soaked connection.

John had the uncanny feeling he was being judged, and being found... acceptable. After the incident, John still accepted ride requests from Sherlock once or twice weekly, although they were brief, cordial. John had no idea how the application matched them so frequently, but he wasn't perturbed. Conversation came easily enough, but lacked the communion of that fateful Tuesday. He was unduly fascinated by this urbane, though now mostly pensive, enigma.


	6. Ungodly Contraption

Something odd was happening. It was Friday evening, approaching 1 AM, and John was listlessly idling in the hatchback, nary a ride being requested. "Server must be down," he grumbled.

In response, his mobile chirped. 221B Baker Street, the screen announced.

"What? How?"

He received the answer upon arrival at 221B. "I had already reverse engineered the configuration that the mobile application uses to hire and despatch drivers," Sherlock explained breezily, "and isolated your account's identification number, which is how I've managed to get you as a driver every time I couldn't find a black cab on my doorstep. That, and every other Uber driver I've had the misfortune of meeting has been rubbish. Unfortunately, it would reject my request as invalid if another rider was already in your queue. So I improved its reliability: all today, I sent malformed requests to the service with your ID hardwired in, effectively excluding you from the driver pool. That is, until just now, when I crafted a well-formed request requiring you to pick me up at this address."

"Hell," John muttered. "You're a right stalker, aren't you."

"Not so, as 'stalker' implies undesired attention."

John opened and clamped his mouth shut a couple times before managing a reply. "I suppose it's useless to argue the obvious: I do find you fascinating."

"Unprofessional, inciting intimacy with your passengers," Sherlock mocked him.

"Look here, I'm a doctor, not a goddamned cabbie," John protested, before realising the irony in his statement.

"Technically true, as you are an independent contractor with no rights, benefits, or privileges of being a City of London taxi driver."

"Shut it, Sherlock."

As John slowed to the next traffic signal, Sherlock nearly swung the rear door off of its hinges. Before John could realise what transpired, he clambered into the front passenger seat. Greeted with a full six feet of tweed- and gabardine-clad limbs, John stared, startled that the man previously addressed entirely via the rearview was a mirror image of what he'd constructed in his mind.

"What are you doing?" John demanded.

"Having the decency to continue this conversation face-to-face," Sherlock replied. "I can hardly express intimacy to the back of your head." He paused. "Despite your objections, your interest is apparent. I sought you equally out of genuine curiosity and bullheaded frustration that you could speak so contrarily to your own desires. Your response to the affections of men was almost autonomic, a semi-conscious defence mechanism."

"Interest or not, you can't assume all of that, or that I could reconsider my identity overnight."

"I've no need to assume. You've been anxiously anticipating my arrivals for well over a month."

"Could you be ANY less presumptuous!"

"John," interrupted Sherlock, "for heaven's sake, cancel the ride, stop the car, and speak to me." In response, John flung the car around a corner to the narrowest alleyway he could find, yanked the handbrake, and skidded to a stop less than a metre from a row of skip bins. Claustrophobic stillness enveloped them, and it suited him just fine.

The laser sharpness behind Sherlock's gaze softened, became diffuse. "This isn't the first time you've been attracted to a man."

Paralysis gripped John, from his entrails slowly upward. He wasn't sure if it was terror, titillation, or both.

"But it is the first time you've been challenged to acknowledge it."

John's throat, reminiscent of the Sahara, somehow generated a croak to confirm.

"Well," Sherlock chided, almost gently. "There's certainly one way to fix that."

John closed his eyes, and when Sherlock's lips touched his, coherent words fled his mind. When he finally regained his sight, he emerged from a chasm innumerable fathoms deep and found himself staring into incandescent eyes, the arctic sky ablaze at high noon. Transfixed, he realised there was much beyond the impartial mask. Sherlock's dilated pupils held galaxies.

"Oh," said John. While he was indisposed, his trousers had been undone.

Arctic sky darkened to wicked midnight. Sherlock's voice was solemn, nearly reverent. "I promise to take care of you. And I don't make promises lightly."

John had barely nodded assent when his eyes involuntarily snapped shut, a gasp escaping as supple lips surrounded him.

"Hmmm," rumbled Sherlock's voice awkwardly from below the steering column. "Do the seats of this ungodly contraption collapse down?"


	7. The Art of Deduction

With Sherlock's manoeuvreability definitively proven, they lay entwined in the rear compartment, slightly contorted, but each unwilling to extricate themselves from the other. John, despite the newness of his predicament, could think of far more uncomfortable places to be. He'd been adrift on a sea of tarmac, and was finding solace in this anchor (which was perhaps more akin to an elongated bundle of flotsam with pointy elbows and knees).

"I expect that the evening's events have adversely affected your opinion of exploitative contract employment," Sherlock chuckled. John rolled his eyes, hoping his juvenile gesture went unnoticed in the dim compartment.

"You had misgivings, as did I. And yet, how did you know I was captivated, beneath the surface?" he asked.

"The elementary art of deduction, my dear John." John resisted the temptation to chin him.

"I felt a magnetism present the moment you first greeted me," Sherlock continued. "I thought it was strictly physical, despite your cauterised moustache, or maybe because of it. The deliberate way you moved your hands, your unexpected formality, your... agreeably compact dimensions." John groaned, prompting Sherlock to squeeze him possessively. "I realised you were no ordinary army doctor or part-time driver. Your well-considered choices reflected a remarkably compatible intellect, not to mention your penchant for danger. Your entire improbable existence is a cavern demanding to be explored."

"All innuendoes intended," John mumbled cheekily.

"Indeed," agreed Sherlock, "though I'd personally choose a less confining venue for such activities." Slender fingers tugged lightly on a wantonly curled moustache end. "I'm more than willing to ease away your inexperience, at whatever rate you find appropriate." 

His voice dropped an impossible octave. "Be my private driver, John Watson." Unbidden, a wholly outrageous Tina Turner adaptation sprang forth as John's mental soundtrack. I'll do what you want me to do....

"Wait-- how did you know my last name? Pilfered from Uber?"

"No, I palmed your wallet while you were distracted."

"Oi, ruddy-- I absolutely will not."

The alarm that breached Sherlock's eyes was quickly smoothed over. He drew a breath to speak, but John continued.

"Primarily," John added, "because I refuse to play Jeeves. I would prefer full participation in this adventure to being a paid driver. I would rather be... a partner."

"A partner," repeated Sherlock, inflection impossible to discern.

"Okay, clearly you are quite capable on your own, but I offer a medical expertise that complements your, ahem, deductive abilities. I'm a quick study, and useful in dodgy situations. In addition to being a damned good driver. A sidekick, perhaps."

"No," corrected Sherlock, with an uncharacteristic facial twitch. "I prefer partnership." It was only when he punctuated the statement with a liplock of vampiric force that John realised that the glitch was a rare smile.

"But for those moments where you do play Jeeves, can I be Wooster?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Clearly there should be an Explicit-rated sequel, but I'll leave that to someone else.


End file.
